During many sewing operations in the garment industry, it is desirable to quickly load, hold together, and sew together two pieces of fabric material. Sometimes it is also desirable to fold one of the fabric work pieces during loading or at some other time before the work pieces are sewn together.
Some automatic sewing machines are restricted to sewing a linear seam. Other automatic sewing machines have complicated clamping mechanisms moving on X-Y tables. Some machines move the work pieces in an X-Y pattern while the stationary sewing heads sew rectilinear seams. Yet other machines have a sewing head traverse one axis while the holding apparatus moves the workpieces on one or two axis.
Existing pocket setting automatic sewing machines slide positioned fabric work pieces over a fixed table having a polished surface. Work pieces are pressed against the polished surface by work piece holders. The work piece holders cause the work pieces to move into the sewing station from the loading and folding locations. Movement of the work piece holders during the sewing operation creates the seam outline. However, the sliding action of the work pieces over the polished table surface sometimes cause the work piece materials to bunch.
The fastest machine cycle times are achieved by dedicated automatic pocket setting sewing machines, limited to a specific task. These machines have two workpiece holders, each of which is mounted on a cumbersome and expensive guiding system. Only by having two workpiece holders can the machine operator load subsequent workpieces while a previously loaded workpiece is being sewn.
Moreover, when sewing pockets on polo type shirts, current machines require the shirts to be open at the shoulders for the sewing operation to be accomplished. In the garment industry, some types of shirts are sold with and without pockets. In order to minimize warehousing and inventory costs, it is desirable to warehouse these types of shirts without a pocket. After an order is received, pockets could be quickly sewn on the pocketless shirts if the order required. Moreover, pocket placement could be more accurate because it would be the last operation. However, no known machine sews pockets on already finished shirts.
Many small factories in the garment industry do not have skilled repairmen on staff, making it important that sewing machines be simple and require minimum maintenance. Additionally these small factories lack the capital to invest in high cost single purpose dedicated machines and prefer more flexible machines that can be utilized for other purposes.
With the foregoing in mind, it is the object of this invention to produce an automatic pocket setting sewing machine in which the loading and folding operations can be accomplished during the sewing operation thus allowing for minimum machine cycle times.
Yet another object of the present invention is to eliminate workpiece holders and their complicated guiding mechanisms and yet provide fast machine cycle time by giving the operator a location at which to load the next garment while the previously loaded garment is being sewn.
It is another object of the present invention to provide apparatus such that pockets may be positioned, folded, and sewn on already finished garments.
It is an additional object of the present invention that the apparatus be a designed with a minimum of moving parts to effect a simple reliable low cost easily maintained apparatus suitable in use in a factory environment where trained technicians are not available.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a pocket setting machine in which the set up may be easily changed to accommodate changing workpieces and sewing seam patterns.
Another object of the present invention is to minimize bunching of workpiece materials caused by sliding workpieces over a polished table when they are being pressed together by a workpiece holder.
Other objects of this invention will become apparent from the following summary of the invention and description of the preferred embodiment of the invention.